An hour or two later the two travellers came to a halt. Maud found some early tea awaiting her, and joyfully exchanged the tiring captivity of the palanquin for the horse which had been hurried on for her use for this stage of the journey. 'I have been fast asleep,' she said, as Boldero and she rode down the hillside together and watched the faint glow in the east warming gradually into day, 'and this is very refreshing. The darkness, the crowd, the blazing torches, the confusion, the babel of tongues we had last night seem like a horrid dream. I was never more thankful for the light. I feel as if I were escaping; and, Mr. Boldero, you are my deliverer. I shall be grateful to you all my life. You must have had so much trouble and have done it all so kindly and like yourself.' 'Do not talk of that,' said the other; 'what are friends for but to serve us when we need them?' 'And to forgive us when we wrong them?' said Maud, whose conscience was goading her to confession; 'I know I have behaved ill to you--to you and to everybody. Now I am going to try to do better, if only I can get the chance--if only God in His goodness will grant me that.' 'I am hopeful,' said Boldero, 'for both of you. Sutton, I feel, has something greater yet to do. We have often laughed and said that nothing can kill him. You know in cholera it is as much mind as body: courage, calmness, and determination are half the battle.' 'Then,' said Maud, with enthusiasm, faith, and hopefulness glowing in her face, 'I am sure he will do well. His body is his soul's servant, you cannot fancy how completely; it does its bidding as a matter of course. I do not think it would even die without his leave. Have you telegraphed to say that I am coming?' 'Yes, but leaving it to the doctors to tell him when they think best; or not at all, if they fear the intelligence will excite him. Very likely they will be afraid to do so.' 'They will do wrong,' said Maud, who knew her husband's temperament better even than Boldero; it will not agitate him, and it will make him resolve to live. He _will_ live, I believe, if it is only in order to forgive me.' 'Do not say "to forgive,"' said the other, who, in a generously enthusiastic mood, began to think that Maud was pressing with undue severity against herself; 'to tell you all that you have been to him and all the sunshine you have brought into his life.'